


Ultima Ratio

by Anonymous



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blood Magic, Community: dragonage_kink, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Parent/Child Incest, Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:49:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3423437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Prompt:<br/>What Dorian didn't reveal to the Inquisitor was that when the blood magic ritual failed to happen, Halward Pavus tried one more last ditch attempt to stop his son from being gay: he raped Dorian to try and make Dorian disgusted by sex with men.</p>
<p>I want to see Dorian try to move on by ignoring that it ever happened/never dealing with it after fleeing Tevinter, and start having what he thinks is "emotionless" sex with Iron Bull (who's nothing like Halward physically or otherwise). But then Dorian's father visits and all hell breaks loose for Dorian's mental state, triggers, etc.</p>
<p>Bull finds out and is understanding, helps Dorian through the worst of his breakdown. Dorian realizes Bull cares about him as more than just a fuck, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Whether Bull and Dorian try to have sex again after Dorian feels less triggered is up to the author. If so, I'd prefer no "healing cock," just hopefulness and care without a total "cure"?</p>
<p>tl;dr - Dorian was raped by Halward, Iron Bull is a supportive loving boyfriend</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Triptych

_Before_  
If his father hadn't wanted him to learn how to combat blood magic, he shouldn't have taught Dorian to be wary of it, and shouldn't have had him study at the Circle of Vyrantium. Adralla might have had to flee the Imperium, but that doesn't mean that her work has been completely lost. It was hidden, but Dorian was a Pavus, and he knew where and how to look.   
  
His father's apprentices had caught him. The smell of blood was everywhere, and he could hear it dripping as his father performed his ritual. Dorian didn't open his eyes, didn't bother spending his energy on trying to escape the wards that held him, he simply repeated the Litany, over and over again, the only form of struggle he had left. If he stopped he would be lost- but he was not going to stop.   
  
_After_  
The survivors from Haven had bonded over the trauma of losing the place they'd called home, a place they'd considered to be all-but-holy. Dorian was, as usual, left on the outskirts. He'd arrived just barely ahead of Corypheus' army, and Haven was destroyed well before he could develop any kind of sentimental attachment to the place. He was new, he was a Tevinter mage surrounded by southern Templars, and the Inquisitor had only begrudgingly allowed him to stay on.   
  
The Qunari, The Iron Bull, as he was called, sought him out. Of course he did- of course Par Vollen was interested in knowing what an Altus scion of Tevinter was doing in the Inquisition. And of course they sent someone who could play the 'weakness' of his inflexible homosexuality.   
  
Well, the joke was on them. He'd left his country, sold his birthright, and he was here to kill Venatori, same as every other member of the Inquisition. There wasn't all that much to spy upon, let alone conquer.   
  
Still, he thought, letting the Ben-Hassrath top off his ale, that didn't mean he couldn't get something out the Qunari's interest for himself.   
  
_Now_  
The tavern was completely empty when they arrived.   
  
"The place is deserted? Is this normal, or-"  
  
There was a rustle of fabric and soft boots on the stone floor- it seemed they weren't alone after all. For a moment, he thought he must be dreaming, that there must be some kind of demon involved, that it couldn't be-  
  
"Father?"  
  
But it was.

* * *

 

 

_Before_  
It wasn't working. It wasn't going to work. His father had to realize that soon- now- before he killed someone. Surely he hadn't killed someone yet? There was a lot of blood, but there were also a lot of slaves. Surely he hadn't killed anyone. He didn't dare look.   
  
There was the dull thump of something-someone? no, he couldn't- hitting the floor, and Dorian refocused his attention back on the litany. He couldn't stop. He couldn't stop this. He just needed to outlast it.   
  
There were mutterings, no longer ritual chants- except for him, except for the Litany of Ardalla. He didn't stop. He couldn't.  
  
"Get out," his father snapped, and there was the shuffling of feet and robes and-  
  
He looked. There was blood pooled everywhere, leaking over the edges of what should have been pristine glyphs. The slaves were carrying someone out. They couldn't be dead- he couldn't have- not-  
  
He stopped chanting. "Father?"  
  
He didn't respond with "You're no son of mine." He couldn't have. It wasn't possible. It wasn't possible.  
  
 _After_  
Riding the Bull was as terrible and wonderful an experience as the Bull himself had advertised. The second time was worse. The third time was something else entirely: the Bull asked him for something first, a watchword.   
  
He scoffed at the concept. He wasn't here, doing this, under the illusion that the Bull cared overmuch about his safety. He was doing it because he could, and for all his talk of conquering, the Bull was in no position to really hurt him.  
  
But the Bull refused to move things along until he'd agreed, so he'd repeated the word "katoh" with an eyeroll, and resolved to forget it entirely after that.   
  
_Now_  
"I only wanted what was best for you."  
  
How could he stand there and say that? How could he even pretend that was possible? How could he-  
  
"You wanted what was best for you! For your fucking legacy! Anything for that!"  
  
His father only stood there, looking contrite as though- Dorian couldn't handle this. He leaned against the bar. Maybe this was demons. Maybe he should have kept saying that Litany. Maybe he should simply leave now and be done with it.   
  
"Don't leave it like this, Dorian. You'll never forgive yourself."  
  
Like that was ever an option. Like anyone here could be forgiven for this mess.   
  
"Tell me why you came."  
  
"If I knew I would drive you to the Inquisition..."  
  
How did that even fit in? Where did he think the Inquisition had come from? It was nothing to do what he'd done, nothing to do with the ritual, nothing to do with why he'd left.   
  
Did he dream it? Did he make it up? He hadn't stopped. He hadn't looked. He didn't know.

* * *

 

 

_Before_  
He didn't fight it. Not like he should have. This was his father doing this, his father, who had taught him that principles were worth sticking to, that honesty and integrity were to be valued, that refusal to acknowledge a problem as long as it wasn't obvious was a fault. That blood magic was the last resort of a weak mind. That if he took a slave or an apprentice or a servant into his bed, he would be taking advantage. That being a Pavus meant speaking out against the corrupt and the destructive, even when it wasn't easy.  
  
His father, who loved him. His father, who was so proud of what he accomplished. His father, who _couldn't do this_.  
  
And he didn't want to hurt his father.   
  
He took up the Litany again. It was the only way of struggling he had.   
  
_After_  
Sometimes he wished the Bull were a little less... Bull. Not in the penis department, it bared saying, as he was no longer capable of thinking such a sentence without anticipating a barrage of puns, but elsewhere. Personality-wise, maybe.   
  
Dorian's had men who'd wanted to conquer him before, in Tevinter and after he'd left. They might not have been as good at it as the Bull (or, alright, well-endowed, yes, anyone in the area who wanted confirmation about qunari dicks, it was all true, yes, everything you've heard, even that, now please go be mortifying somewhere he wasn't) but that didn't really change the scene. At some point he just shut himself off, and when they'd finished he could find his way out and put himself back together as he saw fit. With the Bull- he liked to help put Dorian back together again.   
  
Reparations, he's sometimes tempted to call it- the Bull's response would surely be interesting. Or enlightening. Probably both, and he'd probably find some way to make the next book he read about the expansion of the Ancient Imperium or the creation of the Orelsian Empire or the Exalted Marches or whatever sound _unbelievably_ crass.   
  
Which is what he had expected from someone who had named themselves The Iron Bull definite article included, but somehow wasn't. And the- gentleness? The care he showed afterwards. That wasn't expected either.   
  
He'd never considered himself much of a cuddler, but being held afterwards, especially by someone who gave off as much blessed heat as the Bull, made it very tempting to become one.   
  
It was that thought which stopped him from becoming someone who stayed through the night. Giving in to temptation was the last thing he ever wanted to do.   
  
_Now_  
His father explained his reasoning: he only wanted the best for Dorian, he didn't want him to be ostracized any further than his politics had already done so, he wanted him to be happy. Dorian didn't have to hide if he had truly changed.  
  
Dorian gave his retorts: that it wasn't true change if it were forced upon him, that he didn't ask that his father to turn his back on all the values he held dear, that he hadn't wanted _him_ to change, not even for Dorian. Especially not for Dorian, in this case: he hadn't wanted to cause this.   
  
But neither one of them brought up the ritual. Or what happened after. Assuming the two were different. Assuming it wasn't some kind of hallucination brought on by- he didn't even know what could cause him to imagine _that_. To dream that his father had turned himself into a monster, for him.  
  
He'd wanted to think that his father hadn't actually gone through with it. He still wanted to. Maybe it stopped after the ritual for his father, and a demon had taken over, attracted by the blood and taking advantage of the pause in the Litany.   
  
He was definitely too much of a coward to ask.   
  
He waited until they made it safely back to Skyhold and the Inquisitor had said all the platitudes he wanted to say before he started drinking.


	2. Apex

There was a hand on the back of his neck. He clutched at the edge, and tried to twist out from under him. It didn't work, and then there was the burn of penetration, familiar and alien and above all sickening.   
  
"Is this what you like, Dorian?"  
  
The words were distorted and wrong, and maybe this wasn't real, or at least wasn't really his father. He took up the Litany again- if nothing else, it would make the illusion fall away, and he wouldn't-  
  
"Dorian?"  
  
The hand that hand been on his neck brushed the hair back from his face in a parody of concern. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, trying to block out the sensation with the sight.  
  
"What's the word Dorian?"  
  
But the motion has stopped, and he was withdrawing, leaving, it was ending, it had worked this time, it _worked_ -  
  
"The word's 'katoh' and I'm using it, Dorian. Do you understand? Dorian?"  
  
But he was still there, hovering, waiting, so Dorian couldn't stop, just kept up the Litany, slurring the words together as he was cleaned and cossetted and finally, blessedly, left alone.  
  
Eventually, he stopped chanting. At some point after that he remembered just how long he'd been living away from Tevinter, and opened his eyes.  
  
He was still in the Bull's room, but there were more blankets piled on him than he can remember seeing in any one place in Skyhold. The Bull himself was seated on his chair, peering into the fire.   
  
Dorian closed his eyes again before the Bull could realize that he was no longer having his fit of whatever, and willed himself to sleep out of his sheer desire to put off whatever kind of fallout there would be from this until he could at least pretend it was nothing.  
  
There hadn't been much of anything the morning after. He awoke in his bed in Qarinus: he didn't remember putting on the clothes he was wearing, his mouth tasted vile, his head hurt, and he was- sore, dull throbbing pain flaring up as he changed clothes and made his way to the dinning room for breakfast.   
  
It was normal. It was like he'd merely had one of his more incautious nights out on the town. The sun was shining. He could smell the scent of fish and salt blowing inland from the sea. It was bizarre.   
  
The sense of disconnect only intensified when he got downstairs. His mother greeted him politely. One of their slaves poured him his morning tea and set down some fresh achma for him to eat. He kept looking for some sign of what happened. Was the slave serving his breakfast different from their usual girl because their usual girl had the morning off, or had been injured or worse last night? Was his father absent because his work had kept him, or because he was ashamed?  
  
No one acknowledged that there should be anything different about today. It made him want to scream, so he bit his tongue until he tasted blood, and nearly vomited then and there.   
  
"You'll have to forgive me mother, I'm not feeling very hungry this morning," he said, standing abruptly, and left.  
  
The slaves hadn't finished cleaning the study when he entered. The girls paused in the act of scrubbing the congealed blood off the floor, the tracings of the glyphs used to guide the pattern for their blood not even close to gone.   
  
'Did he kill any of you?' is what he should have asked. "I'm going out. When my father returns, please tell him I'll speak to him later." is what actually left his mouth.  
  
He still wasn't sure what he'd actually intended to do in that moment. True he'd packed more clothes than he normally would for a day of potential debauchery, took his entire savings, and even changed into the sturdy boots made for wandering the vineyards of Asariel. But it wasn't until he'd found himself outside on the cobblestones, anger mounting with every step, thinking 'I'm on my own now' that he knew he was leaving.   
  
The morning after with the Bull was different. He woke up, remembered what had happened in embarrassing detail, and it was very obvious that the Bull was expecting to discuss it. He'd slept on the chair, after all. Was sleeping still, as a matter of fact.   
  
Dorian managed to get as far as his smallclothes before he woke, snapping to awareness in the blink of an eye and focusing directly on him.

* * *

 

"I don't wish to discuss it," Dorian snapped.   
  
"Alright," the Bull agreed, and remained silent as Dorian continued to dress. The sun was coming up: he could hear Cassandra putting the Inquisition's soldiers through their morning practice sessions downstairs. He could just walk out the door and never acknowledge it again: the Bull would let him, he was sure.   
  
The very idea felt like suffocation.   
  
"Cole came by last night," the Bull said, startling him out of himself a bit. "Said you might want these when you woke up."  
  
He pointed towards a plate full of <i>biscoctum</i> left on the Bull's desk. "How did-" he began, then stopped.   
  
They weren't actual biscoctum, but they were cookies that were closer to them than any he'd yet seen in the south. Someone- probably, if he knew Cole, someone who didn't know where the idea had come from- had gone through a lot of trouble to make it that way.   
  
Dorian looked back at the Bull, and then sank back down on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. He missed his home. He missed his father. He missed how he used to believe in them.   
  
"Do you want me to get a healer?" the Bull asked, in that careful Ben-Hassrath trained way that he didn't normally use with Dorian.   
  
"No."  
  
"Do you want me to turn myself in?"  
  
" _Festis bei umo canavarum_ , Bull, why would I want that?"  
  
"Because I hurt you."  
  
"Well, brace your ego, because that wasn't- it wasn't because of anything you did."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
Dorian had more or less been addressing the floor up until that point, but he looked at the Bull at that. Right- Tal-Vashoth, savage creatures tearing through anything in their path without thought or mercy. The Bull's greatest fear, already half-realized.   
  
"You didn't hear me say 'katoh', did you?" he asked.   
  
"I- wasn't sure if I missed it."  
  
"Yes, that was rather sudden, wasn't it?" Dorian replied. "I have to admit, I'm not sure why that happened."  
  
They'd played that particular game before, after all, and Dorian had played out similar scenes with other men besides. Granted, none of those times had come after three days of trying and failing to obliterate the memory of a recent confrontation with his father with rather a lot of alcohol.   
  
"So...we're talking about it?" the Bull checked.   
  
"Obviously," Dorian snorted, and the Bull heaved himself from the chair and sat down next to him on the bed.   
  
"What were you saying?" he asked.   
  
"It's called the Litany of Adralla. Adralla was the Circle of Vyrantium's Magister for a time in the Black Age, renown for her work on defensive spells. So renown that she was eventually run out of the country and ended up here in Fereldan. Supposedly her work was all obliterated after she fled, but some of it is still hidden in Vyrantium, provided you're willing to slog through a particularly tedious riddle-puzzle-scavenger hunt that's actually a secret test of character. The obvious answers all involved using blood magic you see: the Litany protects someone from the effects of blood magic on the mind."  
  
"Okay," the Bull said, growing more and more tense by the second. "Why was that coming out during sex?"  
  
"My father-" His mouth closed with an audible clack, his teeth jarring together.   
  
"If you don't finish that sentence, Dorian," the Bull said, his voice low and dangerous. "I'm going to assume things."  
  
"Oh assume away for once in your life, you big oaf!"   
  
There. He'd said it- as good as said it. It was real now. It had happened.   
  
He didn't quite burst into tears and crawl into the Bull's arms, but it was a very near thing.


	3. Vector

By the time Dorian managed to get a hold of himself the sun was fully shinning, and the Bull had maneuvered them both so that they were propped up against the headboard. One of the blankets had been draped over him, and the Bull was rubbing a hand idly down his back. It was the sort of thing he'd normally only allow directly post-coitus, but these were exceptional circumstances.   
  
"I don't even know if it was supposed to be part of the ritual," he said finally.   
  
"What ritual?" the Bull asked.   
  
"You haven't heard, then? I'd have thought Mother Giselle would have turned it into a sermon by now."  
  
"Is this something to do with the trip you and the Inquisitor made to Redcliffe?"   
  
Dorian raised his head up to look the Bull in the eye. "You really don't know?"  
  
"You came back and got hammered for three days straight: the Inquisitor said it was none of our business and not to bother you. I think the rumor mill has decided that you came on to him and he rebuffed you."  
  
Oh, right. Pompous self-righteous ass the Inquisitor might be, but he was a _well-intentioned_ pompous self-righteous ass who probably thought he was helping make up for the lack of respect for Dorian's privacy. " _Vishante kaffas_! As though I would risk Cassandra's wrath."  
  
"And you barely tolerate the man," the Bull pointed out.  
  
"And I barely tolerate the man," Dorian agreed. Well then. That explained the lack of questions about his family from the peanut gallery. "My father contacted Mother Giselle in an effort to lure me out to Redcliffe to meet with a 'family retainer' and discuss how I was driving my father to his wits end. She went to the Inquisitor, who, as you already know, dragged me out to Redcliffe without so much as a by your leave."  
  
"He didn't warn you?" the Bull asked.  
  
"He didn't know," Dorian said. "He still doesn't know the half of it. He's probably under the impression that I found out about the ritual and then left without much of anything happening in between."  
  
"What did happen?" the Bull asked.   
  
"I found out about the ritual, I tried to leave, and I then got caught by my father's apprentices," Dorian lifted his left arm out, so that the Bull could see the scar- or notice its significance, at least. It wasn't very obvious: someone had healed the wound so that all that remained was a thin line nearly hidden by the hair on his arm. There was one on his hip from the same night that was more noticeable, but he didn't feel like moving. "Their staff blades were slathered in magebane- enough so that they could drag me to the study without having their faces melted off. I was placed in wards so I couldn't escape, my father started bleeding slaves, and I started chanting."  
  
"What was it supposed to do?" the Bull said.   
  
"Fix me," Dorian said. "I wouldn't marry, as you know. It wasn't even that I disliked Livia, per say, but..."  
  
"But women aren't your thing," the Bull finished for him. "And he wanted to change that."  
  
"He was desperate. And a little shocked, I think," Dorian said. "It was the first time I'd failed to meet his expectations. It may very well be the first time I hadn't exceeded them."  
  
"You are exceptional," the Bull said.   
  
Dorian snorted. "He was willing to risk ruining it- ruining me. That ritual might have changed more than just who I was attracted to: it might have turned me into a drooling vegetable. To say nothing of the fact that it went against everything he'd ever taught me to believe in."  
  
The Bull didn't respond, just kept moving his hand up and down Dorian's back underneath the blanket.

"He's a very principled man, my father. He was, at least: I'd like to think he still is, when it doesn't concern me if nothing else. He was always standing up for making things better- pushing for the Magisterium to stop pretending groups like the Siccari and the Venatori didn't exist and weren't given support and start wiping them out. That sort of thing. I thought he'd support- it wasn't like I was going to go around introducing myself with 'Hello! I'm Dorian and I like men!' I just didn't want to get married, and I especially didn't want to produce an heir. It seemed reasonable enough to me. The way he reacted, you'd think _I_ was the one to turn to blood magic."  
  
"But _he_ turned to blood magic," the Bull said.   
  
"He turned to blood magic, he bled our slaves- he might have killed one, I- I never actually found out. Someone at least fainted, and then he ordered them all out, and I stopped chanting the Litany, and then-"  
  
"He raped you." It was, in no way, shape, or form a question, but the Bull said it so softly it almost seemed like it.   
  
"He raped me." Somehow it was easier to parrot back the words than actually dredge them up from himself. "Like I said, I don't know if that was part of the ritual, or if he was simply- that desperate to turn me off of men. I half-convinced myself that it was a demon, that it had somehow gotten in when I stopped chanting. Maybe he _was_ possessed. I don't know how he got that ritual. It's possible that it was lying around in a book somewhere, but something that sordid might have come directly from a desire demon. I should have asked him that when we spoke."  
  
The Bull had stopped stroking his back at some point, and was sitting there, one massive arm around Dorian. They simply stayed there for a moment, before Dorian found something else to say.  
  
"They were going to pretend it never happened. At some point I blacked out, and when I woke up I was in my room, the cuts had been tended to, and everyone was going about as though it were a perfectly ordinary morning. I think I might have convinced myself it was all a trick of the Fade if I hadn't walked in on them cleaning the blood out of the study."  
  
"Then what?" the Bull asked.   
  
" _Then_ I left," Dorian said with a note of finality. "And I was perfectly content to have left it, and then-"  
  
"Yeah. Shit like that has a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect. You're fine, it's done, and then suddenly it's like it-"  
  
"-is still happening," Dorian finished.   
  
"Yeah," the Bull agreed.   
  
This time, the silence that followed was broken by the Bull's stomach growling, which for some reason seemed about the best thing that had ever happened. Hunger was a lot easier to deal with than his father.  
  
"You know, I'm not sure Cole brought these for entirely my benefit," Dorian said, groping out towards the desk for the pseudo-biscoctum.   
  
"Oh, good. I was hoping to have some of those," the Bull said.   
  
The shifted around on the bed, Dorian throwing the blanket around his shoulders, and the Bull setting the plate down between them, already getting crumbs on his ridiculous circus trousers. It was at that point that the door opened.

"The Inquisitor is-" Cassandra began, stopping abruptly as she saw them.   
  
"Is Dorian-" Josephine said, peering off to Cassandra's side. She too was shocked into silence, though not for as long as Cassandra. "Oh. He- is?"  
  
"I'll take it that's why he's late for our chess match," came Cullen's voice from outside their view. "Dorian, we'll reschedule."  
  
"You have to see this," Josephine hissed, reaching out to drag Cullen- who really should have been protesting more- into the doorway.   
  
Cullen, for his part, had his hands halfway up to his face to ward off any inappropriate sights before he realized that it wasn't what he thought it was. "Oh."  
  
'Behold, the terrible sexual deviancy of two men sitting fully clothed on a bed, eating cookies.' was something Dorian would later think he should have said. At the time, however, the emotional intensity of the moment before, coupled with the fact that he was suddenly very aware that he hadn't put his face on- so surely there was eyeliner everywhere and his mustache was a complete wreck- made it seem like it would have been less embarrassing for them to have walked in on them fucking.  
  
So it was the Bull who said "Do you guys mind?"  
  
"No," was the quick and slightly defensive reply from all three of them.   
  
"I'm just surprised," Cassandra said, nodding slightly.   
  
"You don't seem like the-" Josephine said, gesturing towards them in lieu of finishing her sentence.  
  
"Relationship type?" Cullen tried. "Not the both of you together at any rate."  
  
"Not that we aren't pleased," Josephine added quickly.  
  
"Well, that's nice, but I actually meant that you're letting in a draft," the Bull said.   
  
"Didn't you need something?" Dorian asked, finding his voice again.   
  
"It can wait," Cassandra said decisively, blushing.   
  
"Then please leave. You're really letting the cold in," Dorian complained.   
  
"You heard the man," the Bull said, making a shooing motion with his hand. "Get out of here before he set the drapes on fire again."  
  
Dorian sighed. "Won't you ever let that go?"  
  
"Fuck no! That was _awesome_."  
  
Dorian could have sworn his heard a desperate, high-pitched giggle coming from Cullen as the door closed, but that wasn't what the Bull wanted to discuss once they were gone.   
  
"You didn't deny it," he said.   
  
"Deny what? Half of Skyhold has heard that story directly from you by now," Dorian replied.   
  
"The relationship thing."  
  
Ah, yes. That. "I still don't know what set me off like that," Dorian warned. "It might happen again. It might happen again more than once."  
  
"I can deal with that," the Bull said. "And if you want to wait a while before trying anything again- and not just that kind of scene, but _anything_ \- I can deal with that too."  
  
"Then I must repeat: deny what?" Dorian said, stuffing a biscoctum in his mouth before he could say anything more sentimental. It didn't quite work. "And same for you. If you need anything. I can deal with that."  
  
"Okay then," the Bull said gleefully. "Hey, have I ever told you about the old Qunari tradition for showing you care about someone?"  
  
"I thought the Qunari didn't mix sex with care," Dorian said.   
  
"Oh, it's not sex," the Bull said with relish. "It's _dragons_."  
  
"The two are different for you?" Dorian asked incredulously, ducking as the Bull threw one of the biscoctum at him.   
  
As it turned out, the Inquisitor had been hoping to meet and discuss dragon hunting strategies with them. The weight of half the dragon tooth hanging around his neck made Varric's requests for input on his newest romance series a lot easier to bear. It made a lot of things easier to bear.   
  
He thought that, if his father tried to contact him again, he'd be able to handle it better now. Maybe he'd go to meet him with his eyes open; maybe he'd ask his questions. Maybe he'd just tell his father that there was nothing he could do to overcome that moment, and as much of an influence as he'd had on who Dorian was, he was never going to get it back. He was never going to get Dorian's forgiveness- if he wanted to wait for it, then he would wait forever.   
  
Dorian was going to move on.

**Author's Note:**

> The original prompt and fill can be found here: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/12606.html?thread=49894462#t49894462
> 
> This is the version with fewer typos and suchlike.


End file.
